The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  Dickens had made arrangements to meet Doctor Jekyll at the club at eleven. That young worthy’s arrival in a hansom proved the next noteworthy event to be observed through the glass.

  “It is time. We must go,” Dickens announced to Field. “Jekyll is on the premises.”

  “Rogers an’ I will follow yew down.” Field startled Dickens with this announcement.

  “Surely you are not going to confront the man in his own club before the race, before Thompson reveals his true identity?” Dickens was visibly thrown by Field’s revision of their play. “I thought you were going to observe the race from a point of vantage on the course and then move in when Thompson confronts Palmer with the murders.”

  “Plans change.” Field seemed quite cavalier about it.

  “Hour presence will put hadded pressure hupon him,” Rogers explained the new plan’s rationale as if he had devised it and we were two dim dolts deserving of his patronisation.

  Dickens did not challenge Field. I could tell, however, that he was not particularly comfortable with this new turn of the screw. “Sometimes too much pressure upon a guilty or criminal mind produces an utterly unpredictable reaction,” Dickens, talking more to himself than to me, muttered in Sleepy Rob’s cab as we trundled down the hill toward the racing club. Field had agreed to stay back a few minutes to allow Dickens and I time to make our excuses for our being there to Palmer. All felt it best that we establish a nonthreatening presence before Field challenged him with the arrival of the Metropolitan Protectives upon the scene.

  When Dickens and I disembarked from our cab and rounded the corner of the club building on the walkway to the stable yard, I saw Palmer glance toward us then snap his head upward on alert as recognition flooded in. It was immediately evident that he was unhappy with Dickens’s presence, but he said not a word as Jekyll and Dickens greeted one another. Smiling idiotically, Dickens offered some inanity about “what a superior winter’s day for a horserace, is it not?”

  “Indeed it is,” Jekyll answered, turning with a smile from Dickens to the group composed of Palmer, Thompson, and Irish Meg (to my great relief!), and two men in coarse tweed coats who looked to be stablemen cashiered to double as race officials.

  Palmer simply glowered at Jekyll’s cheerfulness and turned back to his conversation with the others. He offered not so much as a rudimentary polite acknowledgement of Dickens and I. What Dickens did next, I am absolutely certain he did out of pure spite for Palmer’s snub.

  “Ah,” Dickens said in a voice rather louder than it needed to be, “here is Inspector Field of the Metropolitan Protectives come to observe the race with us. Where did you say would be our most profitable point of vantage, Jekyll?” For one who but moments before had expressed nervousness concerning Field’s decision to intrude precipitously upon the scenario, he certainly had changed his tune.

  Dickens’s clearly enunciated comment snapped Palmer’s head around once again. The good doctor’s hooded eyes beneath that black brow watched the sharp-hatted, heavy-sticked, bullnecked detective stride up the walk with his hunting hound Rogers at heel.

  Dickens shook hands fawningly with Inspector Field and, conveniently forgetting the personal snub of only a few moments before, turned with great relish to introduce Field to Doctor Palmer: “Inspector Field…Doctor Palmer. The doctor is one of the contestants in this race that I have told you about.”

  Palmer stepped forward and extended his hand, which was uncommon steady, Field noted later, for a man who had murdered four people. “I have heard your name.” Palmer seemed under complete control. “You are pursuing my wife’s murderer, I believe. I wish you luck.”

  Field bowed silently.

  I did not know whether to take Palmer’s words as a mere statement of recognition or as a challenge.

  “This is Harry Gilbride, my opponent in the race,” Palmer, out of politeness, introduced Tally Ho Thompson.

  “Yew look passin’ familiar, yew do.” Field, with a twinkle in his eye, shook hands with the young gentleman.

  “I fear I have not yet made the acquaintance o’ the English police”—young Harry laughed—“only the Irish constables in County Cork.”

  “We must see to the horses,” Palmer growled and stalked abruptly off to the barn. Young Harry of Ireland followed, cheerily tossing a wink to Field as he went.

  All of the preparations for the race were complete. The course would begin and end in the stable yard of the Hounds Club. The two riders would take off down a chute formed by the white fences of the club which fed into the forest bridlepath. After a rather short curving run of two turns through the trees, they would emerge upon the open heath, and race straightaway to the base of Downshire Hill where they would circle the Druid’s Oak and race back to their starting point. As Guiliano the tout described the course to us spectators, the grooms led out the horses, already saddled, from the barn. The two principals, talking, walked behind their mounts. All seemed quite congenial; amateur sport contested among gentlemen.

  Palmer’s horse was a strapping black, rippling power through its shoulders. Tally Ho Thompson’s mount was a sinewy bay with flaring nostrils. It looked the epitome of run. We found out later that this horse, bearing the pseudonym Macgillicuddy, was really Allie’s Skin (remember that Tally Ho Thompson’s Christian name was, indeed, Aloysius—something he shall never be allowed to forget), and had been Thompson’s mount when he was haunting the night roads round Shooter’s Hill. Allie’s Skin had been maintained by that worthy in the stables at the Spaniard’s Inn ever since he had left the profession to take up acting in the city. Thompson may have given up being a highwayman for a while (actually well over two years), but he had never given up his horse.

  The horses were led out of the barn snorting and skittish, as if they knew full well what they were in for. The big black pawed the dirt angrily while the bay tossed its head like a child eager to play. In the chill winter air, their breaths exhaled in short, smoky plumes as if they were steam engines stoking up for their mad dash into the English countryside.

  All of the spectators gathered in the club’s yard were either mounting up on their own horses or climbing into their carriages to take up points of vantage along the course in order to better view the race. My Meggy was of a party in a large open carriage. Said party was made up of a number of male members of the club who, I learned later, were also the card-players of the evening before. Young Jekyll, on horseback, directed Dickens and I in Sleepy Rob’s cab, followed by Field and Rogers in the black post chaise, to a position atop a small hillock at about the midway point of the course overlooking the first straightaway (which, after the turn around the Druid’s Oak, would be the home stretch). From that point of vantage, we could watch as the riders emerged from their gallop through the trees to ride full out down the heath and back.

  A pistol crack!

  From our hilltop perch we knew the race was on. Long moments passed as we strained to catch a glimpse of the riders through the trees. Then, suddenly, the two horses, neck and neck, their riders poised forward, knees up in the high stirrups, heads buried in the rushing manes, burst out of the skeletal grey forest and thundered onto the heath.

  Palmer, on the surging black, held the slightest of leads, a stride at most. He flourished his whip to the back in his right hand and flogged his horse’s flank with a mad intensity. Tally Ho Thompson, hand riding his mount, glided easily across the hard ground just off the black’s shoulder. He carried no whip and seemed to talk to his horse as they went. For some reason, I knew—felt, I guess—that Thompson was holding the bay in, keeping the race close, riding comfortably at Palmer’s breakneck pace. I found out later that, indeed, the reason for Thompson riding so close for so long at Palmer’s pace was so that he could talk to him, badger him I should say, during their gallop. He kept the bay in close on his prey so that he could easily exchange words.

  Thompson revealed his identity and openly accused Palmer of poisoning his wife and did it while they were s
till racing through that trees. As they burst out of the trees, Thompson was describing how he had slept with Palmer’s dead wife and how, when naked in bed, she had repeatedly denounced the doctor to him as a faithless husband and a compulsive gambling man. Many of the ensuing events of this chase over the heath I witnessed for myself, for we were always close at hand. For some of the more intimate details, however, I am forced to rely upon the somewhat questionable account of Tally Ho Thompson. For example, as they rushed breakneck through that wood, was Thompson really taunting Palmer with his cuckolding? Thompson laughs and claims he did. Whatever the truth, whatever Thompson did, indeed, say, he turned the good doctor into a frothing madman.

  Bursting out of the wood and coursing down the heath toward us, Palmer ceased beating his horse’s flank with the whip and took a vicious cut at Thompson. He raked Thompson across the cheek just below the eye and sent that worthy sidesprawling out over his horse’s haunch. Miraculously, Thompson managed to stay on and right himself in the stirrups as his horse, sensing his rider’s distress, yawed away from the fierce black. That intuitive bit of communication between horse and rider allowed Thompson to regain his seat.

  “Drive after ’em, Serjeant!” Inspector Field, witnessing Palmer’s sudden attack upon our man, shouted the order to Rogers.

  Rogers, however, was not quite ready to the task. He was in the process of making water behind the post chaise’s rear wheel when the race had commenced and, though rushing to finish, was not quite buttoned up when Field’s order came.

  “After them, Rob,” Dickens ordered at the same moment, “he needs our help.” Much to my personal astonishment and, I am sure, to the others as well, Sleepy Rob, who seemed to be perpetually dozing in the box, reacted much more alertly than that supercilious martinet, Rogers. As the two riders streaked across the heath, kicking up dirt and loose stones at every plunge, riding the whirlwind, Sleepy Rob whipped his horse into motion and sent our cab careening down the hill in close pursuit. Rogers was just pulling himself back up into the box of the post chaise as we clattered by.

  Aright in the saddle once again, Tally Ho Thompson gave his bounding bay its head and urged it back into the pursuit. That racer caught Palmer’s black beast with barely an effort. Thompson’s horse was a runner all right; what a pity this was no longer a race!

  The two riders came abreast of us spectators at the moment we rumbled down the hill toward the bridlepath. They thundered by in a blur like the Brighton train. Sleepy Rob whipped us in close behind them, but they, just as quickly, at full gallop, pulled away. From behind, I watched the riders rushing side by side. I could see, or perhaps I even imagined that I could hear, Thompson screaming at the enraged doctor. The two horses, whether at the physical command and control of their riders or not I cannot say, suddenly lugged together, bumping in the rutted, weather-pocked path, almost unseating both riders. In fact, all control seemed slipping away.

  Palmer recovered with malignant intent. Realising that Thompson was once again within reach, he struck out fiercely with his riding crop.

  For this blow, however, Thompson was prepared. He parried it with his upraised forearm and ducked under Palmer’s down-slashing return. Not waiting for Palmer to strike out again, Tally Ho turned the obedient bay sharply in to bump the black. At the precise moment of contact, Thompson launched himself out of the stirrups and onto Palmer’s back. The momentum of his leap carried both men off of the rushing horse’s back and landed them atop one another in the brown scrub of the winter heath.

  By this time, we had fallen back behind the riders at least ten coach lengths, but I could still see the astonishing physical exchanges of these two men even as they were racing along on horseback. I was having trouble staying upright next to Dickens in Rob’s cab as we careened down that rutted path in the wake of the racing horses.

  When we rumbled up to them, Thompson and Palmer were grappling on the ground. With a lunge, Palmer rolled away from his antagonist and was reaching inside his riding coat as he came up onto his feet. When his hand emerged from beneath that black waistcoat, it held a miniature twin-barreled pistol. I saw it all unfold from the window of our cab as if time had slowed and the whole scene were a painted tableau. The squat little gun came out in Palmer’s hand and was murderously leveled at Thompson, who was scrambling up off the ground. It was then that a most extraordinary thing happened, a surprise for which none of us was prepared.

  There was a mad, utterly inhuman hate twisting in Palmer’s face as he prepared to pull the triggers of his ugly little gun and blow twin holes in Tally Ho Thompson. He looked like Satan brought to earth. Sleepy Rob must have seen that hateful look; perhaps it frightened him into action; who knows? Nonetheless, he moved more quickly than he had ever moved before, awoke from his sleep of ages. Jumping to his feet in the box, he twirled his cabman’s whip once around his head in a wide arc in the air and lashed out at Palmer’s outstretched arm where that small pistol sat like a venomous toad ready to spew forth its bile. Deftly the long lash of his whip snaked ’round Palmer’s wrist and snapped back hard. Palmer’s outstretched hand flew wildly up and both barrels discharged harmlessly into the air in twin puffs of grey smoke.

  Thompson’s eyes had gone wide at the sight of the gun. Momentarily, he had turned to stone with his hands out in a pacifying gesture as he stared into those twin barrels. But once this aid struck in from that unexpected source and Palmer was disarmed, Thompson did not hesitate. He charged toward the doctor, driven by rage at the lethal threat that the gun had presented.

  Palmer, however, recovered sufficiently to evade Thompson’s blind, headlong charge with an adept sidestep. Then, choosing flight as the better part of valour, he turned tail and ran for his black horse, which was grazing unconcernedly just up the rutted path.

  Thompson took after him, but was not quick enough. Before he could be stopped, Palmer had leapt into the stirrups and was putting his spurs to his mount.

  It was precisely at this moment that the Bow Street post chaise stormed up and reined in.

  “’Alt for the Protectives!” Field shouted from the carriage, but Palmer paid him no heed.

  Wrenching the black beast’s head around and spurring him hard, Palmer rode straight at the onrushing Thompson, tried to ride right over him, flailed at him once more with his whip, succeeded in bumping Thompson hard with his horse’s haunch as he coursed by.

  Thompson’s agility saved his life. He was, however, neither quick enough nor agile enough to totally avoid Palmer’s murderous charge. He was bowled over, knocked sideways onto his back on the frozen ground. Though but a glancing blow from the rump of the charging horse, it felled Thompson utterly, leaving him dazed and incapacitated in the frosted grass.

  Seeing Thompson go down, Palmer reined in hard, yanking back so brutally on that black beast’s head that the terrified thing reared straight up upon its hind legs. Palmer sat the rearing horse like a wide-eyed devil and, when the black returned all four legs to earth, turned him full around to make another run at the downed Thompson.

  Hesitating not an instant, Dickens leapt out of our cab and ran willy-nilly in front of the wheeling horse, Daniel right into the den. Screeching and waving his arms, he taunted the black-browed devil: “You killed her for the money, did you not Palmer? You killed them all, did you not?”

  As I look back upon it now, it was an ingenious attempt upon Dickens’s part. That was the question Inspector Field needed answered. Dickens confronted the man with that crucial question at precisely the moment of the man’s ultimate derangement. Though they were behind me in the post chaise, and I did not, in the fury of the moment, look to see what they were doing, I am sure that Field and Rogers were straining to hear Palmer’s reply, hoping for some ill-considered confession.

  “Damn you all!” Palmer cursed as the black once again reared menacingly above Dickens’s head. “Why do you plague me, damn you?”

  Dickens stared up at him, waiting.

  Thompson lay groaning on
the ground.

  Field, Rogers, and I strained to hear their angry exchange.

  Again, the moment seemed to stop and the actors became tableau.

  Palmer scowled down from under his black brow. The black horse, its nostrils flared, pawed hard at the grass. Dickens stared up at the man on the horse as if resigned to whatever fate that heedless horseman held in store for him.

  Suddenly, with a harsh growl, “aarghht,” half-curse, half-bark, Palmer wheeled his horse once again and rode off breakneck down the heath.

  Thompson was hurt and confused. I remember jumping down from Rob’s cab and running to Thompson’s side where he sat holding his shoulder, unable to rise. We found out later that his collarbone was broken on the right side.

  “I mus’ be gettin’ soft,” Thompson said, pain in his face, as I came up to him. “Can’t take a bloody fall off a ’orse no more.”

  “You didn’t fall off.” It was no time to debate him on details, but I did nonetheless. “His horse ran you down.”

  “’At’s good then.” Thompson flashed his maddening grin and fainted dead away.

  “Wot did ’ee sigh? Wot’d ’ee sigh?” Field ran up shouting. For the life of me, I do not know if he was asking me what Thompson had said or the swooning Thompson what Palmer had said when accused of the murders. I think Field was desperate, for he had not envisioned his little horserace scenario getting so out of hand.

  Where is Charles? I thought. Why did he not rush to Thompson’s aid and arrive here before me? I swivelled my head to find him and, to my astonishment, caught a glimpse of his grey coat flapping over those long legs as he ran up the rut away from us.